The Electric Factory Group loves to innovate, no matter the medium

The Electric Factory Group co-founder and CCO Juan Ciapessoni will tell you that you can disrupt any medium, even a traditionally static one like out-of-home posters. “All that matters is the idea, the craft and the innovation applied to the medium,” explained Ciapessoni.

It’s not surprising that he’d point to posters: Recently the 15-year-old Montevideo, Uruguay-based shop has found that tinkering with what exactly those posters are made of is one way to get the eyeballs clients like Unilever’s soap brand Lifebuoy are looking for. In December 2016, the group’s campaign for Lifebuoy—where it took everyday objects, like smartphones and money, and showcased germs on those items in poster-sized custom Petri dishes to get people to start washing their hands more—garnered roughly a million views in just one month.

A spot from The Electric Factory's campaign for Lifebuoy

“Instead of us thinking that billboards or posters are dying or that they need to be digital to succeed, we think they just need to be more disruptive or innovative or have more guts to make an impact in the target,” said Ciapessoni.

For the shop, which also works with clients like IBM and DirecTV and agencies like Leo Burnett and DDB, the point isn’t to prove that posters work but that the staff can rethink traditional approaches to any medium.